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Mr. Thompson,
I appreciate you shedding light on the current issues at OMI; however, I dont NOT appreciate the cartoon associated with your article. The sketch that depicts OMI children carrying sniper rifles was completely uncalled for. Firearms have not and will never be part of the curriculum at OMI. The goal of OMI since the day Jerry Brown founded it was to send kids to COLLEGE not to train them how to shoot a gun. The military framework that Mr. Brown designed into OMI was to provide and teach leadership and self-discipline.
Regards,
Chris Tallerico
Richmond, CA

The complaint about the desire for correct pronunciation of many languages and the lack of desire for correct pronunciation of Spanish/Mexican words is absurd. To use one of the examples already provided, do you really think Italians pronounce "bologna" as buh-low-knee? It's all about approximation. Pronouncing "burrito" without trilling the 'r' is prefectly reasonable, given there is no such sound in English. It's not as if anyone would get by pronouncing "Juan" as "jew-an". Well, no one except Lord Byron.

Dear Mexican,
Like any other white American, I've heard a million times the complaint about how Mexican immigrants are "too lazy" or "too ungrateful" or whatever to learn English. I have a different theory: I think something like 90% of Mexican immigrants learn English almost immediately when they get here, if not before they get here, but they just pretend not to know English because they don't want to be bothered by the gringoes ("cabrones"?).
They realize that most white people who want to talk to them probably just want to hassle
them or take advantage of them, and they also realize that most white people will also probably just get frustrated and walk away if they can't understand Spanish, so it's just
more convenient for the Mexicans to say "No speaka Engles!". I know if I knew Spanish and went to Mexico, I would pretend not to know Spanish so I could secretly eavesdrop
on Spanish conversations, unless I like the person I'm talking to or if it is convenient for me in some way to let on that I know Spanish. Is my theory correct?

Those of us who were displaced two and a half years ago from another Wareham building in Emeryville are following the story of the Zaentz Center. Our building got mold due to defective construction, and Wareham is proposing to build a huge monstrosity right next door, while my family still waits in a hotel to finally return home.
The filmmakers have my sympathy.
www.warehamsux.com is a website my neighbor developed about our sitation in Emeryville.

Basically we are dealing with a group of people who feel they are smarter and better than everyone else. They think that jocks are stupid idiots who have no rights. Likewise, the protestors are attention hungry megalomaniacs. Any other University would have developed Peoples Park ages ago. Instead there is child prostitution, wholesale of illegal narcotics, and rapes and murders there. How nice. Oh and the Panoramic Hill Association, (which is funding all of this mess) has cut down many trees over the years to enlarge their houses. These people are all very selfish, RICH, and again, megalomaniacs.
I went up to the Oak Grove to try and discuss the issues with the tree sitters and was immediately labeled a stupid jock who knew nothing and was a f**king idiot. They then proceeded to run me out of the grove, a public place. My God, they are acting like they own the place! Whatever happens next, however crazy it will be, will not surprise me. If I have learned anything, despite being as the tree sitters called me, a f**king idiot, it is that these people will never stop until Cal football and the University pack up and move to the moon or something. Only then they would say we are polluting space. You simply cannot win with people who truly believe they are always right and we are merely stupid idiots.

As one whose family lived in public housing for many years in New Haven CT, I am grateful for this expose report on the combined Federal/Republican slashes in financial resources for the housing that needs just as much maintenance as our private homes do, but does not get it, thanks to our natioanal priorities lately -- to cut taxes for the rich supporters of the Bush administration and cut any minimal funding for poor families. That's no way to balance our budget; getting out of Iraq would be much more helpful. I hope my grandchildren growing up in Berkeley will be part of a new generation of citizens who will respond to your expose with action for improvement and decent housing for all. Two of them vote now, and another will soon.

Childish? Wow, ok. So how exactly are we supposed to respond to such a childish article? With maturity? No, these Panoramic Hill types who move next to a stadium and then express outrage over the use of said stadium are the insane ones. This is nothing more than a classic example of the continuing efforts of the City to degrade the sovereignty of the University. They have done a wonderful job of making Cal out to be the bad guy, when in actuality they are.
The other great point is the fact that Memorial cannot simply be torn down, so what are we to do with it when we move to Oakland? I have heard rumors that the Panoramic Hill Association plans on turning it into a massive party site, where underage prostitutes and drugs run rampant. I say we send in the National Guard and forcibly remove these residents. Send them to reeducation camps where perhaps they could learn a thing or two. God help us all, God help us all indeed!

I've been a Cal football season ticket holder for over ten years and I'm hoping the stadium renovations occur. However, I have to admit that many of the comments by the pro-renovation folk are childlike. Calling the author names and assuming your opinions are the only valid ones is pretty egotistical. We need voices of dissent so that the projects we undertake take all negative impacts into consideration.

Give UC Berkeley a break. It is 1.2 acres of planted Oaks.
The smart thing to do would have been to demand "mitigation", where UC Berkeley buys 5-10 acres of umperiled (i.e. to development) oaks elsewhere (ideally on the edge of an existing East Bay Park) and donates it to the East Bay Park system. That would actually add good habitat to a much larger chunk of intact habitat. This "Oak grove" is pretty low value habitat.
This is something that could have been worked on in conjunction with other environmental causes. This maximizes the time and energy of activists.
The dumb thing to do was to waste 100% time and effort for months for 1.2 of degraded oak habitat (take a walk in Tilden, then take a walk in the grove if you don't know what I'm talking about). This has tied up the time and energy of dozens of activists. Any victory is a loss if the true goal is to preserve habitat.

your humor is fantastic..your wit-outstanding! you have a tremendous amount of self-sustained integrity and therefore you are trustworthy and summarily use honesty as a powerful virtue rather than a political tool.. if you choose to publish a picture that you deem worthy of your own esteem...go for it!! i'm just another hot male who has the hot's for you.....marry me...!!

Hi,
This is a comment about last week's letter where the guy wanted to know why Mexican's put their feet on the wall. This is my theory: because all Mexicans have beer bellies and then wear stcked heels, putting the feet on the wall tilts the pelvis inward and relieves pressure on the lower back. Dancing like that surely makes their backs hurt, at least get tired.

Number of errors in this subjective story.
A's stadium was over 30 years old; A's wanted an entirely new and fancy "downtown" stadium in Oakland. It wouldn't have mattered if the Raiders were there or not, as the A's wanted out of there.
Oakland refused. So the A's sought the riches of the Silicon Valley, which they probably were really after all along.

Joan Barnett writes:
"The EIR issued in support of this retrofit/development outlines a way to pay for it by having an unlimited number of other "capacity events" at the 62,00 seat stadium. So the stadium becomes no longer alumni's much-beloved Cal Stadium, but a large, commercial venture with possible rock concerts, etc."
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Hey Joan, I've not seen the document that refers to the unlimited number of "capacity events" at the 62,000 seat stadium, but I've got to ask you...exactly how many events per year (outside of a measly 6-7 football games) do you think stadiums that hold 62k persons are booked for? By simply perusing ticketmaster's site, it sure doesn't look like many. Giants Stadium (a football stadium serving the NY market) is booked for one concert (The Police) thus far for this year. ONE CONCERT. The LA Coliseum and Rose Bowl currently have NO bookings. So even if they were to use it as a commercial site, the demand simply doesn't exist for an unlimited number of non-football events. Your argument fails to apply logic beyond that of hysteria.

This comment is directed to Chris Adams, who said:
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"As a retired architect I would add that there is no way that an athletic training center could cost $1000 per square foot, unless there is a substantial hidden cost to make its structure part of the needed support for the west side of the stadium."
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Uh, Chris...have you been following this situation at all? There is absolutely nothing hidden about the cost nor the plan to include shoring up the western wall of Memorial as part of phase 1 of the project (which refers largely to the construction of the SAHPC).
To quote DIRECTLY from university documents in a description of the project: "This building will be placed partially below grade so that the top of the building forms a plaza at the exterior promenade level of the stadium." The document continues: "Construction of the underground space for this building will require significant shoring of the existing west stadium wall, thus providing the first phase of seismic reinforcement to the stadium itself."
What's being hidden here?

WOW. As a Berkely native, I hate to say I have read dumber things but not by much. Off campus stadiums have not worked for college football. Moreover, the move to oakland would HURT attendence and make the deficits that you speak of even larger....football turns an important profit to help support the rest of the athletic department. You also need to address the question of "now what" since demo'ing Memorial is out of the question given its historic significance. I

Memorial Stadium in Berkeley is one of the best places to watch a football game on the planet. Not one bad seat in the house (except for the ones closest to the field), and views are to die for. McAfee/Network Associates/Virus Scan Coliseum is one of few reminders of an era of monstrous multipurpose bowls, and is an awful place to watch almost any event by comparison. The seats on top of Mount Davis are even worse than the "visitor" section in the LA Coliseum. Why anyone would entertain moving from a gem to a sh*thole is beyond me.

Terrible research. Horrible logic. Sounds like someone who doesn't like football and who has drank the Panoramic Hills association coolaide. As a Cal alumni, I am extremely disappointed by the the city's lawsuit against the University. The flagship University in the great state of California
defines the City of Berkeley. It is not the city that defines Cal.
Why can't we have a great academic University as well as a great sports
University? Both are possible and your misguided efforts to support some tree supporters is very disappointing. The University has
done an excellent job in preparing for this renovation (why wouldn't they?) and new athletic facilities. The Stadium is 84 years old. We need new facilities.
You should be ashamed of yourself as a fellow Cal alum.
We will win and our sports programs will excel just like our academic programs.
Go Bears!

I appreciate Chris Thompson's serious response in a recent Express to the Botero art exhibit now on display at UC Berkeley. However, I would disagree with the premise that this is not "good art." I found the fleshy figures to be perfectly suited to the point being made. Though in the past I found the Botero figures merely refreshingly amusing, for once, their balloon-like vulnerability made perfect sense to me in this dangerous context. Also, the color-scheme in each tableau or series was so well worked out that it seduced my eye to move through the composition taking in the full horror until, at some point, the pure hell of what I was seeing would overwhelm me and I had to look away. In the gelatinous yet grainy flesh-tones of yellow, green and brown, Botero intimated half-death, indescribable pain, and, ultimately, life that had ebbed away. Although I had seen the photos taken by soldiers at Abu Graib which scaffolded these visions of terror, that was not what was playing in my mind when I viewed the paintings. The artist has created a world -- a bit like Bosch's -- and I could be there, briefly, very uncomfortable in the realization that viciousness and abomination also exist in our humanity. And the question is, what can we do about it? I believe this is art and not cheap propaganda, and the metaphor encompasses Abu Graib but goes far beyond it. In it can be found the conventions of Catholic Christian art but also intimations of Hindu art. Goya's work on war was not exhibited in museums in his lifetime, either. We don't like to be reminded.